


This Will End

by asphyxeno



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Comfort, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Nightmares, Post-Books, heavy book reference, takes place sometime during witcher 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22583068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asphyxeno/pseuds/asphyxeno
Summary: With a sharp inhalation, Jaskier woke up.Jaskier has nightmares, and so does Geralt.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 8
Kudos: 158





	This Will End

**Author's Note:**

> _No, I am not afraid to die  
>  It's every breath that comes before  
> Heartache I've heard is part of life  
> And I have broken more and more_
> 
> \- The Oh Hellos

Heavy hands held him down.

Jaskier had been alone in the camp when it happened. Men, bandits, no doubt, had swarmed the campsite as he'd sat by the dying fire, composing. The sound must have drawn attention, the kind he should have learned long ago not to attract. Should have, but didn't.

"If you would, for a moment, just wait!" Jaskier scrambled for words, and his mastery of language failed to breach the impenetrable fortress that was the blind greed of humanity. He searched the camp hastily for help, eyes flickering over unfamiliar faces. He hadn't been camping alone. "You should know, I'm traveling with a witcher. He won't be pleased about-"

A hand at his throat quickly silenced him, pressure applied to his throat with every attempt to speak. Though the bandits said nothing, the shining steel of a dagger at his throat spoke volumes. Keep quiet, it demanded. Unfortunately, Jaskier had never been one to listen to such a demand so easily.

"We don't have any-" he declared, voice constricted and tight.

The hand on his throat tightened and he heard the creak of leather coincide with the slip of cold metal as the tip of the blade, dull and rusted, drove down, down, tearing skin apart in a jagged and uneven thrust. Hot blood gathered at his clavicle as the dagger punctured delicate cartilage. 

Panic set in, and Jaskier found that breath would not come. Agony plagued by fear crept icy-hot in his stomach and in his throat. Surely this feeling would stop, surely? This couldn't be it, could it? After everything? Surely the witcher would come just as he always did. He wouldn't have abandoned him, not--

There, at the very edge of their camp, he spotted Geralt, motionless on the ground. A pitchfork protruded from his breast and a thick, dark pool of cooling blood curled around him. The witcher was dead, and Jaskier had been able to do nothing about it.

"Geralt!"

With a sharp inhalation, Jaskier woke up.

Shaky hands lifted to touch sweaty skin as Jaskier gulped in air as if for the first time. His eyes flickered around, taking in the campsite around him, dying embers cooling to a dull red glow. The night air cooled his flushed face. He was awake, and more importantly, he was safe.

It had been a dream.

Not for the first time, and not for the last, Jaskier had dreamed of his own death. And of Geralt's death.

He pressed fingers to his neck, testing the muscle, the flesh, and finding it smooth and undamaged, if a bit in need of a shave. His mouth was dry and his throat ached terribly, reminiscent of the pain he'd experienced in the dream. He struggled to cough, and delighted in the vibration, that it was possible. He was okay, he assured himself, it was only a dream. Yet still, he couldn't stop trembling.

"Jaskier."

Jaskier startled at the sound of his name, the harsh, gravelly voice somehow comforting despite its form. He found the witcher sat kneeling beside him.

"Geralt," Jaskier said, and his tongue felt like cotton. The gruesome vision of death he'd dreamed hadn't faded of his eyes. It never did, since Rivia.

Geralt held out a flask and Jaskier accepted it gratefully, regardless of its contents. He took a heavy swig. He wasn't sure whether he ought to be disappointed that it wasn't vodka.

"You were screaming," said Geralt. It wasn't a question.

Jaskier didn't answer at first, still unsteady with the lingering effects of his dream. If he'd been shouting, it certainly explained the raw feeling in his throat. "Was I?" he asked numbly, and took another drink.

"You said my name."

Jaskier hummed absently, his dream still consuming him.

"You're shaking."

"Yes. I noticed."

Jaskier tensed as a warm, broad hand gripped his shoulder. An attempt to steady him, ground him. The memory of too many hands on him - tightening their grip on his throat, holding him down, keeping him from fighting back - vividly crossed his mind. He could still feel the bite of the blade at his throat, see the blood soaked grass surrounding the witcher.

"Jaskier." Geralt again, pulling him back into the waking world. He moved his hand to cover Jaskier's own, where he'd been gripping the flask, so hard his hand ached from the pressure.

The bard exhaled a shuddering breath. He must have been holding it. "Sorry," he said, feeling unsteady. "If I woke you."

"Now I really know something's wrong. Move over." With a grunt, Geralt shifted closer, moving to share Jaskier's bedroll. It was only now that the bard noticed Geralt had given him both sets of bedding at some point during the night. So, he hadn't woken Geralt up after all.

In a matter of moments, Geralt had invaded his space, encompassing Jaskier with calming warmth and familiarity any average person would never associate with a witcher. Anyone that didn't know Geralt, that is. Jaskier was pressed protectively against Geralt's broad form, strong arms wrapped loosely around him in a way that wasn't confining like those in his dream had been. It was comforting.

"Jaskier," said Geralt, somewhere above the poet's head, "Talk to me."

Jaskier looked up into golden eyes, pupils dilated to accommodate the low light. He could only hold the gaze for a moment before he had to look away. "Do witchers ever dream, Geralt?" he asked, trying to turn the conversation in a direction he could control.

Geralt's brow furrowed at the question. "Sometimes," he said.

"Tell me about it?"

"It's not usually pleasant."

"Tell me anyway."

Geralt sighed. At first, he was quiet, and it seemed like he might refuse, but Jaskier knew better. Geralt took the time to gather his thoughts before he spoke, something the bard rarely did. But he knew the witcher, and so Jaskier didn't rush him, and in the time it took, he calmed down. Or at the very least, he no longer shook.

"For a long time now," said Geralt, "I've been ready and willing to accept my own death. I know that the Path is dangerous, and that one day, it will be the death of me. I've come to terms with it. It amazes me that I'm still here, even after..." He felt Jaskier tense at the mention of the pogrom at Rivia. "So when I dream, I feel helpless. What I fear most is the deaths of those I care about, and too often I dream of them in danger, of _you_ in danger." Geralt tugged Jaskier closer against him, reassured by his presence. "Occasionally, my dreams can be prophetic, as you know, especially the worst ones. I suppose I wake up and worry which nightmare will come true next. The most I can hope to do is keep those I love safe. In a dream, I cannot act, but here, in the waking world, I can. My own life means very little, so it's worth the cost."

"Not to me, it doesn't," said Jaskier quietly. Again, he shook, but this time, it was not out of fear. Geralt pulled away just enough to look at him. The troubadour was furious. "I know the world has been harsh to you, and that people have been harsh to you, but to me, I-" Jaskier gripped Geralt's shirt, almost surprised it wasn't full of bloody holes. "In Rivia, when you'd... When you died, it destroyed me. It haunts me even though you are here before me now, alive and well... I _still_ dream about it. So do not tell me your life means little when the memory of your death weighs on me so heavily."

Geralt was silent, feeling chastised.

Jaskier continued, "And I dreamed of my death, something that happens all too often. By rights, I shouldn't be here. When you returned with Ciri, and told me what had happened, I couldn't believe it. I still don't in some ways. And then, not a week later, you..." Jaskier exhaled a shaky breath. "I suddenly found myself alone. Every member of our Hansa was dead, and all right after I, in a cruel twist of fate, had only just escaped the scaffold. Too often I wonder what would have become of our Hansa if I had come with you instead of staying in Toussaint. Perhaps no one would have died. Perhaps I would have died with them. Or perhaps I would not feel so guilty that I am alive when they are not."

Geralt did not know what to say, and so said nothing.

"Like you, my dreams can occasionally be prophetic. I once dreamed of Yennefer in Skellige, something I could not otherwise have known. Like you, I wake up and worry which of my nightmares will come true, and be the end of me. Or worse, such as in this one, the end of us both."

Finally, Geralt found his words. "What caused our death in this one?"

"Bandits."

Geralt couldn't help it. He snorted. "'Bandits'?"

"I'm happy you're pleased." Jaskier didn't sound happy at all.

Geralt pulled Jaskier close again and pressed a kiss to his hair to appease the sulking bard. "If that's all, then yes, I'm pleased. You really think, after everything, that _bandits_ would be the end of the famous poet?"

Jaskier sighed, accepting the witcher's reasoning, and while he could have, he did not argue that he hadn't thought a pitchfork of all things would be the death of the great Geralt of Riva, either. "It _would_ make for an awful ballad. And who would they get to write it? You?"

Geralt laughed lightly, his breath ghosting across soft, brunette strands of hair. His chest tightened at the thought that Jaskier might die before him, and he knew how it must have felt to be left so alone. He'd felt the same seeing him the troubadour face execution in Toussaint. "Promise me something, Jaskier."

"Yes, Geralt?"

"Live long enough to publish _Half a Century of Poetry_."

"Alright," Jaskier smiled, and then yawned, finding himself tired again. "But only if you're still around to read it."

**Author's Note:**

> i dont know what this is but take it anyway


End file.
